Cub Scout leader, ex-teacher confronted London terrorist

By Ashley Fantz, CNN

Updated 1645 GMT (2345 HKT) May 24, 2013

Photos: Attack in Southeast London24 photos

Attack in Southeast London – Lee Rigby was identified as the victim killed in a cleaver attack on May 22. He was a member of the 2nd Battalion Royal Regiment of Fusiliers. The brutal killing of Rigby shocked the United Kingdom, with Prime Minister David Cameron saying the act appears to have been a terrorist attack.

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Attack in Southeast London – Following his funeral, Royal Fusiliers carry Rigby's coffin out of the Bury Parish Church, on Friday, July 12.

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Attack in Southeast London – People line the streets to watch the funeral procession as it drives away from the church on July 12, in Bury, England.

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Attack in Southeast London – From left, Lyn Rigby, mother of the slain soldier, stepfather Ian Rigby and Lee's wife Rebecca Rigby grieve as Ian reads a family statement on Friday, May 24, in Bury, England.

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Attack in Southeast London – Flowers lay close to the scene where Rigby was killed on May 24, in London.

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Attack in Southeast London – A man places flowers near the scene on May 24.

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Attack in Southeast London – A police officer stands with flowers in a storm on Thursday, May 23, close to the crime scene in front of Woolwich Barracks in southeast London.

Attack in Southeast London – Flowers lie outside Woolwich Barracks on May 23.

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Attack in Southeast London – Soldiers walk outside Woolwich Barracks on Thursday, May 23, near where the soldier was killed.

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Attack in Southeast London – Notes and shirts sit outside Woolwich Barracks on May 23. The slain soldier was wearing a "Help for Heroes" shirt when he was killed.

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Attack in Southeast London – British soldiers stand guard outside the barracks on May 23.

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Photos: Attack in Southeast London – Britain's prime Minister David Cameron addresses media representatives at 10 Downing Street in London on May 23, a day after a soldier who was hacked to death in a London street by two suspected Islamist extremists.

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Attack in Southeast London – Members of the far-right English Defence League wear balaclavas as they gather outside a pub in Woolwich on Wednesday, May 22.

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Attack in Southeast London – EDL supporters confront police in Woolwich on May 22.

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Attack in Southeast London – EDL leader Tommy Robinson joins supporters at the crime scene on May 22.

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Attack in Southeast London – A police officer guards a tent that's been set up at the crime scene as investigations continue late May 22.

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Attack in Southeast London – Mary Warder brings flowers to the scene of the crime on May 22 to pay respects to the victim.

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Attack in Southeast London – Men place flowers near the scene on John Wilson Street.

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Attack in Southeast London – A police officer guards a blocked-off area in Woolwich on May 22.

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Attack in Southeast London – A general view of Woolwich Barracks, near the scene of the crime.

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Attack in Southeast London – Police officers block off a road in Woolwich.

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Attack in Southeast London – Forensic officers investigate the crime scene on May 22.

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Attack in Southeast London – Police walk to the scene in Woolwich on May 22.

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Story highlights

Ingrid Loyau-Kennett was on a bus when she saw what looked like a car wreck

She decided to get off the bus to help but realized a man had been hacked to death

She kept talking to a man who held a bloody knife to distract him

The man told her that he hacked a British soldier to avenge killings of Muslims, she said

Wednesday afternoon, former teacher Ingrid Loyau-Kennett was just a passenger on a bus passing through southeast London.

Thursday she was being hailed as one incredibly brave woman who confronted a man seconds after he hacked a British soldier to death in broad daylight.

It began when Loyau-Kennett, a Cub Scout leader, peered out of her window on the Number 53 bus, according to London's Guardian newspaper. She saw a car that looked like it had crashed and a man on the sidewalk. "I thought it was a bit bizarre," she said.

Ingrid Loyau-Kennett

Thinking she could help, she got off the bus and hurried toward the bloody man.

"When I approached the body, there was a lady cradling him," Loyau-Kennett said on ITV's "Daybreak" Thursday morning.

And then Loyau-Kennett did something that most people probably cannot imagine. She started talking to him.

"I thought I had better start talking to him before he starts attacking somebody else," she told the Daily Telegraph. "I thought these people usually have a message, so I said, 'what do you want?'"

Indeed the men had a message.

"The only reasons we killed this man ... is because Muslims are dying daily," he said in video aired by CNN affiliate ITN.

"This British soldier is an eye for an eye, a tooth for tooth," the man said in the video. "We swear by almighty Allah we will never stop fighting you until you leave us alone."

Loyau-Kennett kept trying to engage the man.

"I asked him if he did it and he said yes and I said why? And he said because (the victim) has killed Muslim people in Muslim countries. He said he was a British soldier, and I said really, and he said, 'I killed him because he killed Muslims and I am fed up with people killing Muslims in Afghanistan. They have nothing to do there," Loyau-Kennett said, according to the Telegraph.